Teachers employed by local government councils in Borno State have yet to benefit from the N18,000 minimum wage implemented during the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in 2011.
Borno State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Jibrin Mohammed, said teachers, mostly in the primary schools, were being paid salaries below the old minimum wage, nine years after Federal and state governments implemented it.
“Our primary school teachers are still being paid stipends as salaries. Some local governments even owe some of the teachers even with the meagre salaries,” he said.
The NUT chairman, while speaking on Monday in Maiduguri, stated that teachers on the payroll of the state government had been enjoying the N18,000 minimum wage, which their primary school counterparts had only been dreaming of getting.
According to him, “The morale of the teachers is really low; their welfare has not been attended to. So, how can they give in their best when the government is not sensitive to their plight?
“We have pleaded with the government, we have registered our grievances but our plea have fallen on deaf ears, the government has refused to act on our demands. This salary is our legitimate right, we are entitled to it. It’s not as if we are begging for any favors from them, we only want them to give us what is our statutory right.”
Mohammed said teachers employed by local government councils in Borno had no interest in the special welfare package announced by President Muhammadu Buhari in October, but more concerned about the state government implementing the N18,000 minimum wage, as well as the N30,0000 minimum wage implemented last year.
Borno NUT chairman also lamented that the union had engaged the state government on different occasions to express their feelings, but the state government kept giving excuses of lack of funds to cover the salaries of those teachers.